December 2011
Intermediate to advanced
485 pages
15h 47m
English
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The I/O Kit Model
The I/O Kit is an object-oriented framework, thus it requires a language that provides an object-oriented programming abstraction. Apple chose to implement the I/O Kit in the C++ language, and consequently, drivers that are written for Mac OS X are developed in C++.
While the choice of C++ for driver development is unique among operating systems, it reflects the modern nature of Mac OS X. The initial version of Mac OS X was released in 2001, and Apple took the opportunity to design a completely new model for driver development. The choice of C++ reflects the state of both computer hardware and compilers when the I/O Kit was designed.
The choice of an object-oriented language has considerable advantages. Hardware in a computer ...